Trust and Golf: How Neither Makes Sense

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I’ve been reading Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

I was particularly struck by the way they told Robert Scoble‘s story (a success story, but not usually painted as a trust story).  They call Scoble one of the first trust agents ever on the World Wide Web. 

Though hindsight is 20-20, many people watching Scoble’s moves at the time would have labeled him at best irreverent, irresponsible, and committed to career suicide … at worst a complete idiot. But looking at him through the lens of what it takes to become trustworthy, I’m siding with Brogan and Smith—what he did was brilliant.

The Scoble Story

In 2004, Scoble, then a Microsoft employee, took to blogging about serious issues Microsoft and its end users were experiencing. He even candidly sung the praises of Firefox, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer competitor.

Not only did Scoble not get fired, he got readers. And Microsoft got business. Brogan and Smith report, “People began eating up everything he said. If his very next blog post had praised Notepad as ‘the best app ever,’ his readers probably would have said, ‘You’re so right!’”

Scoble attributes part of this phenomenon to something he learned when he helped run retail stores in the 1980’s. If he told a customer that a competitor had a better selection, they often came back and asked to do business with him anyway, “’cause I like you better.”  (Maybe he got it from the Macy’s Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street, who recommended competitor Gimbel’s on occasion).

What’s Golf Got to Do with It?

One of the reasons trust is so hard to get a grip on is that it’s rife with paradox. For example, the thing we’re most afraid to say or do is precisely what will build the most trust. Or, in Scoble’s case, the best way to generate sales is to have the courage to be brutally honest about your product’s weaknesses and your competitor’s strengths.

Here’s the link to golf (pardon the pun): I am not a golfer. To me, the only logical way to get that tiny little ball to travel hundreds of yards off the first tee towards that tiny little cup is to hit it as hard as possible. If you’re a golfer, you just shook your head in dismay because you know what my strategy will yield: a nice left hook into a thick forest of trees.

Scoble came to be seen as someone who could be trusted because he knew that building trust is like a golf swing: hype your product and you hook the ball; be honest and land it square on the green.

Golf Aside, Motives Matter

Leaving the golf metaphor behind for a moment, it’s important to remember that motives really do matter. Buyers have a sixth sense for manipulation. Had Scoble been talking trash about his products with the intention of closing deals, his strategy would have backfired. Which leads us to another paradox: the more you try to build trust with the intention of closing deals, the less deals you close.

Take a look at your business model. How might the lessons of golf—and Scoble—improve your game?

Trust Summit, Friday October 23, 2009 at the Harvard Club in New York City

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On Friday October 23, 2009 at the Harvard Club in New York City, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, co-authors of the New York Times bestselling book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation and Earn Trust, along with David Maister and Charles H. Green, co-authors (with Rob Galford) of the business classic The Trusted Advisor will be discussing the power of establishing Trust, and how to harness it in today’s complex and connected business world.

The panel will be followed by an open forum for questions and discussions from the audience. To purchase tickets to this invite you may register here. Space is limited; sign up early.

We would like to personally invite you to attend this one-of-a-kind event where you can interact first hand with leading subject matter experts/authors and learn how you can benefit from establishing trust in your business and professional life.

Where: The Harvard Club
When: Friday October 23, 2009 at 7:30am – 9:30am
Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 at the door
Register: http://trustbreakfast.eventbrite.com/

Trust Summit: October 23, New York City

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I want to let you know of an upcoming event you might want to attend.

Chris and Julien are co-authors of the current best-selling book Trust Agents. David is my co-author, along with Rob Galford, of The Trusted Advisor.

I first met Chris and Julien as they were writing their book. I found them very engaging, and masters of new social media.

But what has really impressed me is their ability to apply new media technology in service to greater trust in business. They are walking role models in that regard – they walk the talk.

It was Chris’s idea to have this meeting, and I enthusiastically supported it.

We’re looking forward to a great breakfast with spirited dialogue between the four of us, but most importantly between us and you, 300 of our closest friends.

CNBC and BusinessWeek.com: Teeing it Up

As long as we’re on the subject of marketing, let me offer you a couple of links,

First, my BusinessWeek.com article of earlier this week, titled Wall Street Run Amok: Why Harvard’s to Blame.

That intrigued the good folks at CNBC, who put me on October 7 with the header "Is Harvard to Blame?" Host Melissa Francis played up the Harvard angle with mock outrage, but it’s all in fun—and a pretty good (albeit fast) take on how we create business environments that nurture trust.

Both—I think—are good entrees to teeing up the broader issue of trust we’ll be discussing in New York.

Hope you can make it.

Charles Green on CNBC and BusinessWeek.com This Week

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GodzillaIt’s been an interesting week for trust.

BusinessWeek.com Article

First, Businessweek.com chose to print an article of mine titled Wall Street’s Run Amok: Harvard’s to Blame.  In it, I argue that the usual explanations for business malfeasance–greed, poor regulation, badly designed incentives–miss a much more fundamental cause.

For several decades now, our business schools have been teaching competition rather than collaboration, and contracted-out processes rather than partnership-based relationships.  With such beliefs at the heart of business, it’s not surprising that we find a dearth of things like trust, ethics, and generally getting along.

In fact, if you design a system based largely on self-aggrandizement (think sustainable competitive advantage, maximum shareholder value) as ends, it’s not just unsurprising–it’s downright predictable.  There’s no such thing as ethics if there is only self-involvement.

These belief systems worked well in the 1980s. Today, in a world where six degrees of separation is a vast overstatement, we can no longer afford ideas that encourage competing with our suppliers, customers, employees and partners.  We need a new belief system.

I’m not teeing off on Harvard Business School per se.  It’s just that, well, it’s the Harvard of Business Schools.  And it had more than its share of the designing of the competitive/contractual/process ideology.  If it can be as successful at teaching the new beliefs as it was at the old, it will continue to fulfill the powerful and positive role it used to.

Watch Me on CNBC Today

The good folks at CNBC apparently read BusinessWeek.com.  They were chatting about the article, and invited me in for today, Wednesday the 7th, on the Street Signs show (Erin and the boys).  The plan is for a slot at about 2:20PM.  Plans, of course, change, but plan to tune in.  And, as they say on the Bravo Channel, watch what happens.  [Later: here is the link to the video–have a look-see, it was fun!]

RainToday Article and Webinar

Also this week, RainToday publishes my article How Poor Cross Selling is Ruining Your Business in today’s issue.  Another very practical example of how the ability to manage trust–in particular, your trustworthiness–is a key driver of effective performance. 

Finally, I’m doing a webinar this week with the good folks at St. Meyer & Hubbard.  You can sign up here, and though the session is aimed at building trust in retail and commercial banking, it’s got a lot to say about other industries as well.

The Power of Shame to Fix Low Trust

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Randy Schumann Pay Your BillLongtime friend of TrustMatters Shaula, together with hubby Neil, ran across the photo you see on the right here while on the road in Montana. (Click here to see the web version if you’re reading in text).

It seems that one Randy Schumann may have an account in arrears at the local Gas Mart.  And the retailer in question has resorted to a time-honored tradition to enforce some social justice.

Ouch.

Let me suggest, in all seriousness, that we need more Tiger-Town justice, and less Sarbanes-Oxley types of solutions. 

Shame–for lack of a better word–can be good social policy.

Positive Uses of Shame in Creating Public Trustworthiness

The Tiger Town in Montana is hardly alone. 

* Think about the “perp walk,” used by cops and prosecutors quite consciously.  As Wikipedia puts it, “Perp walks are often done to politicians or businesspeople accused of white-collar crimes (whose reputations may be susceptible to damage by public spectacle).”

Rat* The use of the giant inflatable rat as a shaming device is a long-time tool of unions.  But it goes further; the rat is protected legally (I’m not kidding, see here) as a form of free speech.

* Let’s not forget about the (used to be, anyway) power of investigative journalism.  The notion of muck-raking in the US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckraker ; the power that the Washington Post put behind Watergate, or the New York Times behind the publication of the Pentagon Papers.

* Local TV news shows delight in consumer protection episodes that go by names like the Wall of Shame, our version of the Puritans’ placing people in the stocks in the middle of town. Cops know it’s more effective to post photos of Johns than of prostitutes (so do town governments, which is why that doesn’t often happen). 

Shame Works by Enforcing Social Standards

It may seem obvious, but let’s take a moment to see why shame works.

Most people intuitively agree with Justice Brandeis that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.”  Transparency is a valuable social vehicle for increasing trustworthiness in our institutions.  Disclosure is a bedrock of legislative regulation—in pharmaceuticals, financial services, and environmental policy.  The idea is that organizations will not put out to the public things that they would prefer not be seen by the public. 

The most powerful thing about shame is that it works by enforcing social standards.  If the behavior that is exposed runs strongly counter to public instinct, then the power of shame is large.

If you are ashamed by something, it means you fear the judgment of the public.  To be ashamed, on a very personal level, means to feel the rejection of our peers.  It is a powerful effect, and serious medicine when administered at scale.

Shame Should be Part of the Response to Financial Scandals

The popular press is all over Washington to do something to prevent further abuses in the financial sector.  The pressure is building, because so far very little has been done.

Part of the problem is that “what should be done” has come to rhyme with massive, heavy-handed governmental regulation.  Worse yet, most of that regulation has to do a combination of prohibition (Glass-Steagall)  and massive efforts at compliance and disclosure.

The problem with disclosure alone is it rapidly degenerates into mountains of fine-print, while accomplishing nothing in terms of felt social obligation on the part of those writing it.

The problem with structural change alone (think Sarbanes-Oxley) is that it’s expensive, and the opportunity costs are even higher than the outlays.  Just think of the massive price we pay every day in airports because we haven’t figured out a socially acceptable way to keep terrorists from planes other than forcing granny in Dubuque to dump her over-sized tube of toothpaste when she boards a plane.

I’m far from alone in this.  Read the devastating critique by famed Madoff whistle-blower Harry Markopolis.  He suggests that what we do not need is the routinized, predictable box-checking approach to compliance.  Instead, we need randomized, aggressive sampling, followed by publicity. 

Exactly. Unexpected audits, followed by the application of shame.  Bring on the judgment of the people who own the society, who are the ultimate source of the approval of whatever goes on in our society. 

Enough with laws and regs; up with enforcement and shame.

And Randy—about that account.  The Rat is next.

October Carnival of Trust is Now Being Served

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Scot Herrick, author of the delightful blog Cube Rules, is this month’s host of the Carnival of Trust. 

For those who don’t know, the Carnival of Trust is a monthly collection of the most interesting and noteworthy posts from the Kingdom of Blogs over the past month.  Each month, the Carnival is hosted by an experienced blogger–not myself.  The definition and selection of "interesting and noteworthy" is left to the host; each host infuses the selection and commentary with their own point of view.  The result is a great chunk of reading for you.

This month Scot has collected some terrific blogposts that answer the following questions:

– Would you rather fix your customer’s problem, or be right?  Think carefully now…

– Can you break promises with your employees, or not?  And if so, how many?

– What’s a great acronym for remembering the components of RESPECT?

– How can you get your parents to trust you?

– Would you rather hire a relative, be hired by one, or recommend one?

– How can you market yourself as being trustworthy?  (It’s not a trick question).

 You don’t get this much concentrated good stuff anywhere else.  Treat yourself to a choice bit of edutainment; you’ll love the way it tastes, honest!

Many thanks to Scot Herrick for hosting this month.  If you liked this month’s Carnival of Trust, you might enjoy looking at past Carnivals as well.  And if you’d like to see your blogpost up there in the lights, please do contribute your blogpost (or someone else’s you’d like to nominate) at this site. 

Again, enjoy the October Carnival of Trust.

 

 

 

The Butterfly Effect Redux

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Doug WarrenIf a butterfly flaps its wings in Hong Kong, will there be a monsoon in Hawaii?

Stewart’s Story.

About 6 years ago, I was doing a lot of networking, and met someone who needed a temporary CFO in the Boston area. One of my long-time clients and a networker in the 500+ class on Linked-In, Dallas-based attorney Peter Vogel introduced me to Steve Crane, an avid networker and then a partner at a national firm that provided just that service.

Although I never spoke with Steve directly, through Peter, he introduced me to a Boston-based partner.

I called the Boston partner, and connected him to the potential client. The story could have ended there, but it did not. The Boston partner invited me to meet others in the group in the Boston area. When we met, I shared my view that people in business should treat each other with trust, caring and respect.  One of the partners, Doug, said to me: “You sound just like my B-school classmate, Charlie. You ought to talk with him.” He offered an introduction.  I accepted.

Turns out Charlie was Charles H. Green, now CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates LLC, and co-author of the then recently published The Trusted Advisor. We talked, and did indeed sound alike. That was the start of our valuable and continuing relationship. It’s been great for each of us. All this from doing a favor for someone in Boston seeking a temporary CFO!

Charlie’s Story.

Many years ago, I went to Harvard Business School. I didn’t have long business experience, so initially felt a little outside the group. But I did quickly form bonds with a couple of really great people, including Rob Galford and Doug Warren, both of whom were in "Section H" with me.  Blessed with extroverts’ gift of gab, I found both Rob and Doug refreshing to hang around with, and a great antidote to my own shyness.

We all graduated.  I had a 20-year career in management consulting, then left to found my own business. I co-authored The Trusted Advisor with David Maister and with the aforementioned Rob Galford.

Doug and I saw each other only at reunions, until about 6 years ago when I got a call from Doug. “I want you to meet someone,” said Doug. “His name is Stewart Hirsch, and I think you two might get along.” I talked with Stewart and we did get along. In fact, I hired Stewart to be my business coach. That led to my tapping Stewart’s skills to help serve TAA clients – and now he’s heading our coaching practice

From Both.

A few weeks ago, Peter mentioned Steve (remember Peter and Steve?) in a conversation with Stewart. Stewart realized that he’d never even talked with Steve, much less thanked him. Stewart then called Steve and shared with him his role in Stewart’s story and his appreciation of for the introduction. Now, they are considering networking opportunities for each other, and starting a new set of links.

Tragically, Doug died several years ago, another too-young victim of cancer. Charlie attended Doug’s memorial service, and another service a few years later at a reunion.  Doug’s wife and children still feel connected to 75-odd members of Section H. Those are wonderful tributes to the power of our shared experiences.

But it has recently occurred to Charlie that, for him, there could be no better memory of Doug than to daily appreciate the living reminder of his introduction of Stewart to Charlie.

If a butterfly flaps its wings in Hong Kong, will there be a monsoon in Hawaii? We don’t know. What we do know is that when you help people, opportunities can appear, and when we seize those opportunities, doors open.

Digital Just Wants to be Analog

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You’ve heard the phrase “information just wants to be free?” I’d be grateful to anyone who can actually track down the source of that quotation; my puny efforts have failed.

In the meantime, please accept it as a nice play on words for an introduction.

All Things Digital Seem to Aspire to Analog

Have you noticed, with all the talk about digital this and that, that the actual goal of most digitization seems to be a reversion to analog?
Think about it. What is HDTV about except an attempt to recreate analog? Aren’t video games trying to seem more and more ‘realistic,’ i.e. analog-like?

What are digital sound and movie recordings trying to do?  To achieve higher and higher fidelity to a life-like, very analog, experience.

Cisco Systems  is making great use of a nearly-analog version of videoconferencing.

In the science fiction realm, the ‘coolest’ stuff – I always though- were holographs and transponders. One is a near-perfect image, the other a way of obliterating time and space barriers to sweet home analog.

And don’t forget everyone’s favorite digital creation- robots.   Not industrial robots, of course, but analog robots like R2D2 and 3CPO – robots hopelessly stuck with things like British accents and adolescent attitudes.

Even digital movies are generally about very analog creatures – cartoon versions of ogres and mules, for example.   How much more analog can you get?

Digital just wants to be analog.

Why the Analog World Appeals to Digi-Philes

The basic appeal of digital breaks down to three factors: freedom of space, freedom of time, and freedom of editing. Digital lets you mess with stuff, unbounded by annoying limitations like time zones, protein, and long distances.

But home sweet analog, analog on the range, analog is where the heart is. It’s messy, sloppy, unpredictable, only approximately causal, but gosh it feels awfully real. Sometimes reality bites, but other times it’s all mom and puppies and roller coasters and exultation.  Even pain is drenched in feeling.

The desire to be digital—OK stay with me, I’m reaching on this one- comes from our desire to control.  And the desire to stay analog comes from our desire for complexity and richness of experience.

The adolescent dream, of course, is to tie the two together.  (I call it adolescent not in a derogatory way, but in the sense of a powerful desire to integrate things into one.)  Logically, you can either make digital look analog—or make analog look digital.

Analog, Digital and Business

Business is loaded with examples of trying to turn analog reality into digital form – and it is, indeed, very much about control. Back in the day, the word used for internal accounting systems literally was “control.”

Control was accomplished by the systematic collection, manipulation and analysis of data. When Robert McNamara started at Ford Motors in finance, he said they used to evaluate outstanding receivables by weighing the pile of invoices. That was analog control. He of course moved it to digital.

The digital desire for control hasn’t changed that much. We now have process control meters or processes just about everywhere, and more analytic firepower at our fingertips than we know what to do with. Literally.

We now have digital mantras: “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”  The ideology of digital has decided to co-opt the field of management. I wonder what Peter Drucker would think of that (it’s his 100th birthday this year)?

Fortunately, digital just wants to be analog. The pursuit of digital brings us great benefits, but at the end of the day, it’s only as good as fake analog.  We will revert to the mean, and the mean is analog.

Jorge Luis Borges wrote a charming short story about the end of such searches.   The only perfect map is a full-size representation of the original.  Which makes the map redundant; and worse, boring.

What analog reality are we striving so diligently to represent digitally? And what price are we paying for the illusion of control?
 

Call for October Carnival of Trust Submissions

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This blog has some pretty talented people reading and commenting in its pages. I’d like to invite all of you to consider submitting one of your own blog postings to the Carnival of Trust.

The deadline for submissions to the next Carnival of Trust is this Thursday night–midnight. The Carnival will then go live in a matter of days–after our esteemed guest host, Scot Herrick, has a chance to go through them and make his selections.

Here’s what you do to get your 15 minutes of fame and enrich the world. Pick your trust-related post, and submit it here.

Then sit back and roll in the adulation.

OK, seriously, the Carnival of Trust is a fascinating, monthly compendium of blog postings related to trust in business, trust in selling, trust in society at large. It is kept interesting by the vibrant commentary of our esteemed hosts, and their discriminating selection criteria.  If you don’t get selected, it’s no dis. But if you do get selected, it’s a tribute.

So bring out your best stuff, and share it with the world. After all, how’s the world going to get better if you hide those great insights from the rest of us?

(Read more about the Carnival of Trust here).

Seven Steps to an Effective Client Nurturing Plan

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Sprinkling canThe Journal of Accountancy reported in their annual survey that marketing and practice growth appeared in the top five issues list for the first time since 2005, across all five of the firm sizes surveyed. My guess – it extends well beyond the accounting world.

Let’s face it; survival mode prompts difficult client decisions that include changing long-time providers–possibly YOU.

Misreading Client Loyalty

According to a study by three Harvard professors (The Value Profit Chain, Heskett, Sasser, and Schlesinger):

• 73% of our clients are Mercenaries; “regulars”…but will switch if something better comes along
• 17% are Loyalists, engaging all of your offerings and broadcasting your praises
• Apostles (3% of your portfolio) also referred to as unpaid sales reps, behave much like Loyalists, but also provide constructive criticism so you can better meet their future needs.

Did you catch the scary part? Yup, statistically speaking, nearly three in four of OUR clients are Mercenaries. Indeed, we tend to overestimate client loyalty levels. Recessions don’t help.

Quietly Losing Adhesion

Like a band-aid that’s losing its glue, client losses, except for special cases (e.g. – government bids, mergers, closings, etc.) result from a gradual detachment, a sliding down the curve from apostle to loyalist and then from loyalist to mercenary. The key ingredient in the glue is relationship strength, not institutionally, but at a personal level. The less clients feel attached to us, the easier it is to rip the band-aid completely off.

Create Value

We must create value from the client’s perspective. In turbulent times the status quo isn’t enough.
But how? Its starts with a spirit of GIVING, not quid-pro-quo, but giving with no strings attached. And, as Michael Port (Book Yourself Solid) implores, the value you give must be RELEVANT.

Here is a seven step client nurturing plan designed to cultivate Apostles and improve client retention rates:

1. Be Proactive – Call them before they call you. For example, one of my coaching clients surprised his contact with news of an $83,000 refund check (they scrub every client file seeking losses they can back-apply NOL’s resulting from ERA legislation). That’s apostle behavior!

2. Make introductions – Whether it’s a referral source or a prospective client, your clients love to get introductions, don’t you? Commit to making a minimum of one introduction per day (via email, linked-in, twitter, facebook, etc.)

3. Sampling – Anything free and relevant adds value (see my blog “Free Medium Coffee – No Purchase Necessary”). Send them links to blogs, podcasts, articles, webinars, white papers or books.

4. Compassion – Send them handwritten thank you, congratulations, and condolence cards. Include a Starbucks or Amex gift card for achieving something special. SendOutCards.com automates the process. Remember, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

5. Business Reviews – Set up periodic meetings to review your relationship together. It’s a real opportunity to reach higher level contacts and ensure you’re truly serving them. Tip: make it THEIR meeting.

6. Face-time – Nothing beats live and in-person. Email is ok. Phone is better. In-person is the best.

7. Schedule it – whether you still use a paper calendar or an automated CRM program, decide how frequently you want to touch each client, then schedule your touches.

How would your clients categorize you? Mercenary? Apostle? You sure?

Good news – not only will your nurturing program improve your retention rate, giving makes us feel good and inspires more giving. Think about how you feel when someone gives something of value to you.

Clients don’t leave their Apostles.